When Dr. Linda Hooper-Bui texted me last week for Making the Best of the Summer list, I thanked her. And then I told her that I had no idea what she was talking about. She sent me a link to the National Geographic website. My photograph of St. Eugene Catholic Church in Grand Chenier, Louisiana, was included in the National Geographic Best Photographs of Summer collection. The image showed how Hurricane Laura tossed pews in a stew of mud and marsh cane. As I stood on top of a muddy pew in the back of St. Eugene, my mind raced backward fifteen years. I had a flashback of the day I photographed my church, St. Paul’s Episcopal, in New Orleans, after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent levee failure. The weight of knowing what this would mean to the parishioners of St. Eugene and the surrounding community hit hard. Today another hurricane heads toward the Gulf coast. God help everyone in its path.
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